Owners fined after 11 people broke backs at trampoline park
David Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling are the cacs that ran a trampoline park where scores were injured, some seriously - UNPIXS
Eleven people broke their backs at a trampoline park and hundreds more were injured, it emerged as its owners were fined and ordered to do community service.
David Elliot Shuttleworth, 34, and Matthew Melling, 33, were the directors of Flip Out Chester, where a customer was injured the day after it opened and 270 more were hurt before it closed down two months later.
Between the day of opening until Feb 3 2017, 270 members of the public suffered injuries using the Tower Jump, 11 suffering spinal injuries, four requiring surgery, with 123 injured by knee to face contact along with various other injuries including broken ribs and sprained wrists.
Some suffered “life-changing” spinal injuries and the number of people taken to A&E at the local hospital led to a delegation of medics visiting the site to see what was going on, Chester Crown Court heard.
Customers, including many children, were injured after using the Tower Jump, where people landed in a foam pit.
There was a “cavalier” approach to safety, the court heard, despite multiple people being injured on a daily basis.
The worst injured suffered damaged vertebrae, some resulting in life-long health problems, while many others suffered “knee to face” injuries causing dental and facial injuries.
Shuttleworth, of Stoke on Trent, and Melling, of Spinningfields, Manchester, both pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to a single count of negligence under health and safety law between December 2016 and February 2017.
Judge Michael Leeming said that he was passing sentence on the basis the defendants were negligent rather than committing deliberate acts or cost-cutting at the expense of safety, and that he was constrained by the sentencing guidelines and the law.
He said: “There’s no evidence the company took any steps at all, including reasonably practical ones, to reduce or eliminate those risks.
“Common sense says investigating why an accident has happened reduces the risk of further accidents.
“The sentence will be less than many people hoped for and many people think you deserve.”
Shuttleworth was fined £6,500 and Melling £6,300, with each ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid community service.
Shuttleworth was also ordered to pay £50,000 costs and Melling £10,000 costs, to go towards the £250,000 prosecution costs and council investigation.
Owners fined after 11 people broke backs at trampoline park
Eleven people broke their backs at a trampoline park and hundreds more were injured, it emerged as its owners were fined and ordered to do community service.
